"Should we close Gitmo? Absolutely. It's a blight on our history and I say this as a man who helped create it," says retired US Marines Major General Michael Lehnert.

Twelve years ago he was ordered to supervise the construction of emergency cells at the United States naval base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the first batch of prisoners captured during the war in Afghanistan.

Close Guantanamo? You would find no contrary argument about that inside the high walls and barbed wire of Camp 5 - at least among the prisoners.

Just listen to the anguish in the voice of one of the 12-year men, Shaker Aamer, as he calls out from behind the brown door of his high-security cell: "Please, we are tired. Even if you leave us to die in peace. Tell the world the truth. Open up this place."

And then with rising anger: "You cannot walk, not even a half-a-metre without being chained. Is that [for] a human being? That's the treatment of an animal".

We know what the retired Major General thinks because we heard him address American college students.

"It's my opinion that many of the folks that went to Guantanamo should not have been sent there," he said.

We only know what Shaker Aamer thinks because he had the presence of mind to shout out when he heard a CBS 60 Minutes television crew walking down his corridor.

Needless to say, when we visited Guantanamo Bay we were only allowed to film in cell blocks which had no prisoners.

The military minders were not going to give any other prisoners the opportunity to express themselves, citing the Geneva Conventions.

Aamer cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo seven years ago

Major General Lehnert and Aamer know each other, though not very well. They had fleeting contact on Valentine's Day in February, 2002.

Guantanamo Bay fact file

Number of detainees: 154 (including 3 convicted)

Cleared for transfer: 76

Detainees facing Military Commission trials: 6

Indefinite detention: 46

The remaining detainees are held for possible prosecution.

Detention staff: 2,064

Total number of detainees at Guantanamo since January, 2002: 779

Number transferred to home or third countries: 625

Number of detainees died at Guantanamo: 9 (7 suicides/ 2 natural causes)

Guantanamo prison operational budget US$140 million (doesn't include military salaries or the Military Commissions)

All figures: US Military Public affairs

The marine general came to Aamer's open-to-all-weathers cage at Camp X-ray to deliver some great news. A son had been born to Aamer's wife in the United Kingdom, joining three older siblings.

Aamer has not seen his son Faris in the 4,440 odd days that he has been incarcerated, and has no idea when he might - even though he was cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo seven years ago and that vetting process was repeated in 2009.

Detainee 239, as Aamer is addressed at Guantanamo, is not alone. As Aamer's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, notes: "I don't think there's ever been a prison in the history of the world where 50 per cent of the prisoners have been told they're cleared for release but can't leave. And that has a psychological impact which is horrendous."

Seventy-six of the 154 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are "cleared for transfer" and according to the Miami Herald's veteran Guantanamo specialist Carol Rosenberg, another will be added to that list.

Ali Ahmad al Razhi, once suspected of being a bodyguard of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, has just managed to convince a Periodic Review Tribunal that he should be returned to Yemen, which neighbours Saudi Arabia.

The problem for al Razhi and scores of other Yemenis held at Guantanamo who have also been cleared for transfer, is that their homeland is politically unstable and infested with Al Qaeda.

Major General Lehnert acknowledges concerns about releasing some prisoners but insists that the prison's existence is a greater threat to American security.

"I think that Guantanamo stands as a recruiting poster for terrorists. The United States should stand for the rule of law, stand for the appreciation and respect for human rights. So long as we have Guantanamo, it's very difficult to say that we stand for those things," he said.

Asked what he would say to Shaker Aamer if he could see him today, Major General Lehnert shakes his head saying: "Well it would be very difficult to say anything to him right now, wouldn't it? I am so disappointed because those [prisoners] that are cleared for release should be returned. And I'm not alone in that view.

"There are about 55 or 60, at last count, retired military flag officers, generals and admirals in the United States who have worked with both administrations, both Republican and Democrat, saying that Guantanamo should close because it does not represent the ideals of America."

Lawyer says Aamer wants to thank Lehnert for telling of son's birth

Since we could not ask Aamer what he might say to Major General Lehnert, we quizzed his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of the legal advocacy group Reprieve.

"General Lehnert was the first person in charge of Guantanamo and the best according to my clients. Shaker Aamer actually would really like to meet him when he gets out and say thank you (for telling him about his son)," Mr Stafford Smith said.

Mr Stafford Smith has made some 30 visits to Guantanamo campaigning on behalf of some 80 inmates over the years. About 15 are still there.

"I spent my whole life doing death penalty cases in the US so I've been to most death rows in the US and I can say, without pause for contemplation, that the conditions in Guantanamo are worse than any death row I've ever been to," he said.

This is not a judgement accepted by senior officers at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which draws staff from all the US armed forces. Safe. Humane. Legal. Transparent. These are the institutional mottos.

But long before you set foot on Guantanamo the proclaimed transparency seems somewhat opaque. There is much form filling, security checks and numerous pages of Media Rules which need to be signed.

I’ve been to most death rows in the US and I can say, without pause for contemplation, that the conditions in Guantanamo are worse than any death row I've ever been to.

Clive Stafford Smith

Essentially journalists and camera operators are required to assent to military censorship on anything which might be considered "operational security". The Foreign Correspondent team was banned from filming military guides above the neck, or identifying them.

Those restrictions were not imposed on the CBS 60 Minutes program just a few months previously.

At the end of the first day we spent three hours with an extremely polite military public affairs officer reviewing, frame by frame, what we had been able to film.

The censor was charming but clear: any face of prisoner or guard captured unintentionally was to be erased, with select senior officers excepted.

The numberplate of any vehicle, whether civilian or military, or any identifying landmark in the scrub-covered hills, would be expunged.

It was a curious experience in the land of free speech.

Carol Rosenberg, the Miami Herald reporter who has spent 12 years detailing the lives of hundreds of prisoners and trying to explain the arcane workings of the Military Commissions says: "This may be the worst period of restriction on the media that I've experienced down there in 12 years."

Given the stated determination of the Obama administration to close Guantanamo it seems contradictory that at a military security level there is an increasing choke on the limited information which normally emerges.

But for the Foreign Correspondent team the increased censorship seemed even more reason to see it for ourselves.